{"id":4589,"date":"2005-08-01T08:28:20","date_gmt":"2005-08-01T08:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/08\/why-is-santorum-doing-this.html"},"modified":"2005-08-01T08:28:20","modified_gmt":"2005-08-01T08:28:20","slug":"why-is-santorum-doing-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/08\/why-is-santorum-doing-this.html","title":{"rendered":"Why is Santorum doing this?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blasts Kennedy and Kerry for their "silence" in Catholic scandals<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
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Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania, yesterday alleged that Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry of Massachusetts ”did nothing" about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in 2002.<\/p>\n

”They spoke nothing. They sat by and let this happen," Santorum said.<\/p>\n

…..<\/p>\n

Newspapers stories from the time show a reluctance by members of Congress to involve themselves in matters regarding the church and law enforcement; a front-page article published in The Boston Globe on May 6, 2002, said that ”the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church has generated a startlingly unusual reaction: dead silence." It quoted lawmakers from both parties as saying it was a matter for the church to resolve. Senator Pete V. Domenici, a New Mexico Republican, was quoted as saying: ”Congress has no role in this. We can’t do anything. It’s the Catholic Church." The article quoted Kennedy as saying, ”We’re not the ones to do it."<\/p>\n

Still, Kennedy and Kerry were quoted about the scandal during 2002. Kennedy was quoted in the Globe in April 2002 as saying, ”I urge the cardinal and the church to reflect on the situation and to take the necessary steps to heal the wounds of the victims and the church to allow all of us to move forward." A December 2002 article in the Globe quoted Kerry on his reaction to Cardinal Bernard F. Law’s resignation as Boston’s archbishop, saying: ”While obviously a difficult decision for his eminence, I believe this is the right decision to begin a healing process in the church long overdue."<\/p>\n

Santorum, appearing yesterday on ABC’s ”This Week with George Stephanopoulos," was asked to explain his comment about Boston. He said: ”I singled out Boston in 2002. In July of 2002, that was the epicenter. We did not know — "<\/p>\n

Stephanopoulos cut off Santorum, saying, ”That simply is not true," noting that stories about abuse in many places had been printed at the time of Santorum’s article. ”Well, at the time, we did not know it was in every city of the country," Santorum responded.<\/p>\n

Santorum said that in 2002: ”The senators from Massachusetts did nothing. They spoke nothing. They sat by and let this happen."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I really cannot see the sense of this. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blasts Kennedy and Kerry for their "silence" in Catholic scandals Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania, yesterday alleged that Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry of Massachusetts ”did nothing" about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in 2002. ”They spoke nothing. They sat by and let this happen," Santorum said. ….. Newspapers stories…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy is Santorum doing this? - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/08\/why-is-santorum-doing-this.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why is Santorum doing this? - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Blasts Kennedy and Kerry for their "silence" in Catholic scandals Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania, yesterday alleged that Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry of Massachusetts ”did nothing" about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in 2002. ”They spoke nothing. They sat by and let this happen," Santorum said. ….. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}